Têtes chercheuses — sanstitre.be

Têtes chercheuses (“seeker heads”, as in homing missiles) is a series of images based on photographs taken at air shows or during retardant drops over forest fires. In every case, the aircraft are meticulously erased. All that remains in this series are their traces: white or coloured plumes tearing across the sky, tapered shapes of condensation, sometimes as if suspended in space, giving only a hint of the image’s original context.

The title evokes both military devices (homing missiles) and the mental movement of a gaze trying to identify an object, the context or the meaning of an image.

2 secondes, mais très vite (2 seconds, but very fast, 2009), the starting point of the series. Two photographs taken two seconds apart had captured a plane passing beneath ours on a flight to Venice.

Over the years, the work has borne witness to the evolution of retouching tools and techniques, from manual retouching to methods assisted by artificial intelligence models.